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Jeff Smith

Jeff Smith is a Reader contributor. See staff page for published articles.

Stage Directions

Twister the issue's many-sided, and all make key points. The play has always been there. The change, in the last 30 or so years (and even before) has been the role of the director - and how much input the director should have. There are directors I run to see regardless of what they're doing: Robert Woodruff, Anne Bogart, Scott Feldsher. They put their stamp on a story *and* tell it at the same time. What Sam did with *Working* was brilliant. He took a musical that had failed, rethought it, cast it with an all-star team of local actors, and made it shine. I can still hear Biff Wiff singing "Brother Trucker" and Julie Anne Simeone's waitress asking her customers "aren't you good enough to be waited on by me?" Sam turned a salvage job into art. Yet at no point were you aware of Sam's directorial presence, of his stamp. Everything he did - and the cast, choreography, etc. - served the story. That was in 1982, I think. That same year my brother, Michael, wrote a play called *Over Night*. It was about people who work in other people's dreams. And about a yet to be born child hoping to choose his parents. Michael showed it to one of the theaters in Minneapolis, where he lived. They loved it. Did a staged reading that blew people away. At that reading Michael saw what actors can do with a script. He was astonished at how they fleshed out his words and created moments and business he'd only half thought out. He felt the thrill of collaboration. And when the theater said it would mount a full production, he was ecstatic. The director said the play needed just a few changes. By the time the show opened, Michael didn't recognize his work at all. The director took over - and took so much credit that the theater still owns the rights to the play. The production failed. The critic for the *Minneapolis Star* (the late Mike Steele, one of the best who ever did the job) said the play had great ideas was swamped by a director strutting his stuff.
— April 9, 2012 10:57 a.m.

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